Last weekend was a total blast. Friday was our usual TGIF (which we actually had to do inside since it was raining). Saturday, we did a little garage sale-ing in the morning before getting everything ready for the big party. It was the town-wide garage sale weekend so a number of our neighbor's were also participating. I had no time to prep any sale items last week so we just grabbed anything we could find in the house, threw it on the driveway, luckily sold the things I simply could NOT have anymore (like our old patio set that I just wanted out of our house) and then put a few big children's toys down on Susan's driveway. We closed shop and focused on the day's main event...the Rock Band Party. This was also the first time that we were sending all three boys to Meemaw and Grandpa's house so I packed the most organized and efficient bag I could think of. I put in 6 labeled zip-lock bags with all the necessary items for: Brady bedtime, Logan bedtime <-- including lotion and socks for his poor dry feet...which he obviously inherited from me, Aiden bedtime, then one bag per boy for the morning including a change of shirt for each. I also prepped and packed every one's drink bottles with their usual watered-down propel and sippy cups with milk in them for the morning.

Brian worked all day, with intermittent help from the neighborhood boys, setting up 3 different Rock Band stations. We had one up in our room, one in the living room and then one set up via a projector and an audio receiver in the basement. That one was the most awesome, but also the most difficult since we had to find so many components to get it going. Brian, as always, amazed me with his technical knowledge and had it rockin' in no time.

I dropped the boys off, rushed home and literally started running around the house getting signs in place, drinks out, tables covered, team clipboards organized etc. With no time to spare, everyone started rolling in. What an AWESOME crowd too!! We had around 24-ish people here including everyone from the hood, a couple of Brian's close college friends, a few of my good friends and even some of our neighbor Pete's work friends. Those work friends, I have to say, were SO great. The came DECKED in rock wear, declared it an awesome party before we even started and just made themselves right at home. We started with 2+ hours of practice time rotating all 5 teams through the 3 stations and then went into our battle. When all was said and done, we handed out first and second place medals to some well-deserving teams and then started playing for fun...some of us until the weeeeeee hours of the morning. AWESOME!

On Sunday, we picked up the kids around 10 (yes....10!), went directly to brunch and then spent the rest of the day playing with our friends. We even organized a last-minute dinner with Pete and Susan just because we knew we would never be able to drag the kids away from each other. Brian made awesome mini hamburgers for the kids while we scored with ribs that Pete had been smoking all day for the adults.

So...What's even better than a great weekend and FINALLY rocking the party we've all been contemplating and planning for so long?? Oh...and by "we", I mean the neighborhood Rock Band crew....of about 12 people...who started talking about this thing a year ago?? Anyway...what could be better than that? The fact that Brian is taking the ENTIRE week off. yeah yeah YEAH YEAH YEAH!!!! We're doing a little stay-cationing and also giving him some time to finally take care of a few projects around the house. I'll do a big post on our entire week later. Today we did the Brookfield Zoo....SOOOOO fun. Wednesday we're going to the Arboretum again and then Friday is the members-only preview day at the aquarium.....before it's OUR turn to host TGIF on Friday. Did I say YEAH yet??

Back to last weekend: below, pictures of a rockin' good time! P.S. A bunch of us were sitting outside Sunday afternoon (on our so awesome new patio sectional) and talking about how it feels like Christmas is over (yes....we are all a bunch of losers!). Now we all have to find something else fun to look forward to...we decided it's got to be Mike and Joe (a favorite cover band) at the upcoming Prairie Fest....adults only!

Before I address the party pics, here is a cute one of the boys all having a snack together on Saturday.
Here are the 1st and 2nd place party medals I ordered for the party.

I even had them put these little notations on the back. The 1st place ones say Champions (or is that just "Champion", Karen...I can't remember!) ;)

I think Lisa got best rocker costume....although some of Pete's friends had some hysterical get-ups. One guy dressed himself like a Beastie Boy and even managed to find a GIANT clock to hang around his neck....hysterical.

This is Christine....the ONLY person who actually wanted to sing all night long. She became like my prized player during team set-up (<--which I had to do over and over and over again last week). Most people told me they would rather get shot in the foot than sing. Almost every team had to scramble to find someone....anyone who would sing, but Christine rocked the mic all night long...happily! I even ended up singing some for our team while Brian took over the drums (I'm a big drum hog in our house and Brian usually rocks the guitar...but we switched it up a bit which was totally fun) Christine tells me that her hair does NOT normally look like that - she was part of Pete's work crew....well....the girlfriend of one.

Here is Pete with his team: Christine, Todd and Karen - our 1st place winners!!

Joel and his team rolled into 2nd place. Pictured: Jeanette, Anna, Mike and Joel (Kristin, Joel's wife, was also on the team, but had to leave early). I guess Joel and Kristin are sharing their medal :)

Here are some of the party-goers relaxing by the fire pit outside. After I finish this post, I'm taking a glass of wine out there to sit by the fire with Brian!

I took some pictures of my party signs. I made ones for each "venue" as well. Our bedroom was called "The Condo", the living room was "The Main Stage" and the basement was "The Yacht Club". The Condo comes from when Brian and I first got Rock Band. We set everything up in our bedroom sitting area and used to play up there. We called it The Condo because it was like our own little get-away after the kids were in bed...just like when we owned our Condo downtown. Our band name is "In the Condo"....I even had tee shirts made for us last year (yes....yes....I AM a huge loser...that's already been established). The Yacht Club in the basement is a reference to a bar at Iowa where Brian went to school. I guess there was a bar that was literally in the basement of a house called The Yacht Club.

Here is a sign I put on our bar....which also had coasters, votive candles and a couple bowls of mixed nuts on it.

I put this in the bathroom.

A banner I had over the back door. Jeff pointed out that I put 4 for May instead of 5....details, details!

I didn't take a picture of it, but Brian also set up our front porch table in the middle of the dining room with chairs as a sort of bar table. It was adorable. Off to the back porch!!!

This week is NUTTY for me. It's the final planning and prep push before our Rock Band, Battle of the Bands party this weekend. Saturday we're also participating in the town garage sale. I didn't do laundry last weekend because we were so busy (laundry for 5 people is daunting too...so I sort of ignored it in favor of having fun). I have a TON of random errands to run (get one more chair for the new patio set, pick up contacts, go to Home Depot, go to Michael's, return rock wear I'm not wearing...see picture below) and on and on and on. Plus...the boys are spending their first night at Memaw and Grandpa's house on Saturday so I need to pack all their stuff including a blow up mattress, bedding, pillows, animals and all that jazz. I also have to clear out the GIANT mess of cloths laying in piles all over my bedroom....I'm organizing everything and sorting through stuff for the change of seasons. Enough about the "to dos", I have a point to this rant....

Aiden was playing with stickers this morning and I saw some that came with Brian's last Guitar Hero purchase. They are pretty funny and I think they are meant for your instruments. I just put the boys down for naps and I was reviewing my to-do list (which I strangely wrote on the outside of the rock-band party organization folder). Thinking of the stickers, I decided to rock-out my to-do list. (See picture)


Strangely, this made me feel 10 times better about all the stuff I've got going on. I think adults should be allowed to use stickers just as much as kids...it decorates the stress in such a fun way ;)

Ok...I swear I don't just take pictures of my cloths, but I was trying to help Karen understand "rock wear"...plus I know Den likes this kind of thing. My outfit for the party:My friend Anne and I both bought these jeans...now I think I have to find a Bon Jovi concert so I can wear them again some time! They even have tiny, fake paint splatters. My inner 12-year-old said "hooray" when we saw them. haha

We had a very busy and very fun weekend. It started with our weekly TGIF then a bowling birthday party on Saturday (I took the big boys while Brian stayed home with Bray) followed by a busy Mother's Day.

On Friday at TGIF, Aiden was chilling in a chair for a while (which is so unlike him that I had to take a picture). He and Mr. Pete were hanging out, giving each other 5's
On the other side of the fire pit, Mr Pete's daughter (and a particular fav of my boys), Mackenzie ("Kenzie") took on her regular "taking care of Brady" duties. She is a sweetie!! They were trying to hold hands together.

But Brady wasn't as chill that night as his older brother. He kept standing up on this chair, tried climbing over the back of it and was just generally hell-bent on hurting himself :) That's Mackenzie's hand reaching in to save him. He never fell, but I had to remove him, kicking and screaming, from the scene.

The bowling party was a ton of fun. This was the first time my boys had ever been. I think Aiden now holds the Guinness Book Record for the longest recorded roll on a gutter ball. They had the bumpers up, but somehow he managed to sneak one into the small space between the barriers and the pins. They both got much better by the end...and had a blast so who cares about scores!

I thought for sure they wouldn't have mini bowling shoes, but they did! Look at Aiden's sweet little outfit. His shoes matched his shirt and pants perfectly....

...as did Logan's who ended up with black and grey shoes - crazy! In between their turns, the boys would run to the little arcade right behind our lanes, sit in these giant driving games & pretend to drive until I called them for their next frame. It was a good system.....too bad it took me 5 frames to figure it out :)

Kenzie was on our "team"

Pizza and cake time! Here is Logan with his good buddy Connor.

For Mother's Day, I got to sleep in, got breakfast in bed and then went to the mall where the boys made me my very own Build-A-Bear. (Logan, prompted by Brian asked me on Friday if they could take me for Mother's Day). It was ridiculously sweet.

At the end of building your bear, you kiss and hug a heart and shove it in with the fluff before the bear-assistant ties the fur together....here is Brady with his heart.

Logan and Aiden had one each as well so my bear has three hearts in it. The girl working the fluff told the boys to rub the heart on their heart so mommy could have all their love, and then to rub the heart on their cheek so mommy could have all their smiles, then rub the heart on their mouths so mommy could have their sweet voices. Then she told them to kiss the hearts (Brady just sucked on his really), hold them tight and make a special wish for mommy. Logan's wish was that I could have a bear. haha...how convenient ;) Logan also picked out a sound for my bear which went in her paw. It's HYSTERICAL. It has 5 phrases and says things like "hey girl! looking good!" and "wanna go shopping?!"

After naps, we went to Memaw and Grandpa's house for a delicious dinner. Here are Brian, his dad and his oldest brother doing the dishes....what a beautiful sight :)

Grandpa's birthday is this week so we also had a cake....and a picture with 6 of his 7 grand-sons.

This is Cinnamon...my new bear. Logan wanted to name her Logan and Aiden wanted to name her Scrumble (which is his build-a-bear puppy's name!) I talked them into something a bit more girly!

This is the project Logan made me at school. It's a keychain and even has a tiny picture of him on one side of the key! My darling husband gave me the Vera Bradley large duffle bag I've been wanting for so long. Me = spoiled....as always!

I'm not sure if I've ever delved into the subject of our neighborhood. There is no other way to describe it, but that we are so incredibly blessed to have ended up here. We have tons of kids up and down our street with amazing moms and dads who have all become like family to us. If memory serves, our house was either the 1st or 2nd house to be completed on our street....a street that now stretches from one side of the subdivision to the other. The first summer we were here, we could watch the fireworks at the high school from our front porch. Now there are tons of houses blocking the view.

Summers around here are especially awesome. Every day we hang out with our friends in the back yard or along the front of the houses. I can hardly get the boys dressed with teeth brushed before they are running outside to see if their friends are out yet. We moms were actually joking that we need a code system that we can text to each other because sometimes we need NO ONE to be outside so we can drive up the street and go into our houses (to make meals etc) while there are other times when one of us is outside thinking "where IS everyone!?" Logan has now grasped the concept of the telephone in all its glory and is constantly asking me to call the other moms to see what his friends are doing.

Just today, I was cleaning up the back porch because it looked like rain. I waved to Ella and AJ at their back door a few houses down as I ushered the boys inside for a little milk and a snack. I was kneeling down and talking to Aiden about something inside. When I stood up and turned around, there was AJ with his little face pressed against the sliding glass door, looking in to see what was going on. I just started dying laughing. Simultaneously, the phone rang...I knew it was Anne (his mom). She half asked, half stated, "is AJ over there?!" But of course! He just ran down...as my kids would do if they saw him or his sister outside. She sent Ella down next and then came over with baby Matt for a few minutes before they had to rush off to gym class.

The way things go around here, it's often easier to just feed the kids in one yard, where they are all already playing and can be happy together. This past Monday, for example, we had playgroup at Anne's down the street, but the kids all ended up migrating to my yard near the end. A few had to leave, then Susan went to pick up Mackenzie from school and met us back at my place. Instead of making them all cry and scream as we dragged them off to various houses for lunch, we threw some hot dogs on, Susan went to get buns and pretzels, I cut up a watermelon and they all climbed up into the clubhouse for an impromptu picnic. This used to happen with almost clock-like regularity on Friday afternoons. All the moms and kids would end up gathered together outside. The dads would come home, grab some beers and then we would all start scrounging for food to feed ourselves and our kids outside in someone's yard. This year we made an official schedule and have a Friday afternoon moving party that we call TGIF (thank you Karen...I think you inspired that one!) Anne put the schedule together and the rules are as follows:

the host family makes a meal for the adults and a weekly fun summer beverage
the host will publish (via email) what they are making and everyone else signs up to bring various side dishes, desserts etc
it's supposed to be byob and byos (bring your own sippy cups)
we were also supposed to go as a group to buy mass amounts of burgers and dogs for the kids, but that's turned into a host-purchased item as well
Long story short, it rocks and now we all REALLY thank God that it's Friday!!!

Now for some TGIF shots plus other happenings from the hood

These pictures are from about 2 weeks ago when it was warm, but not THAT warm. The kids really wanted to get the baby pool out. I swear that I'm the crazy house. I always feel like the other parents must be worried every time their kids walk down my way...no doubt they'll end up messy, sandy, wet or all of the above. I honestly think I have a hard time saying no to any activity as long as it doesn't involve: hurting yourself, hurting anyone else, hurting any kind of property or making a mess to big to clean up with towels, more water or a squirt of stain remover. That's quite a lot of stuff that I let go on hu?!! I question my sanity!!

Aiden heads to the play set.

Chad and Anna's set has this cool, twisty slide. I wanted to take a picture of Brady playing in front of it, but one of the kids saw me and yelled "wait!!" He climbed up the ladder, slid down the slide and waited for the picture...then another child did it, then another and another....

This is fairly close to all the kids...I think we're missing Connor, Ashley and Kate here.

Mayhem - too fun! After these pictures were over, they all formed a line and started rapidly climbing up the ladder and going down the slide for a while....it was pretty cute!

Our boys get very excited around their friends and most of these gatherings involve at least one little "chat" with mommy and/or daddy. Logan looks remorseful at least (not even sure what they did anymore....but I think it involved playing rough together).

So...back to this Monday's playgroup and the mass exodus from Anne's place down to mine. After lunch, the boys were all getting hot as the day warmed from the 60ies into the 70ies. They were running around outside playing starwars and needed to be calmed down a bit before naps....so we put on the starwars MOVIE inside and let them chill for a minute (check out the boys with no shirts on...I swear, one of them decides to go shirtless and the next thing you know, they're all 1/2 naked!)
I have to smile because this thought occurred to me today: in my life, you just NEVER know what the day will bring. I used to get up, go to work, get off of work, go home, sleep and repeat. Now....now I get up, get the kids ready for playgroup and end up a good handful of them on my couch a few hours later after a quick picnic lunch (which includes MY good friends too!) Like....how lucky am I?!! I have a pretty cool life!!

P.S. Dear Nana and Papa, We received the requested Buzz Lightyear pajamas on Monday afternoon. Logan wore the shirt with his pants to the gym that day, then quickly changed into the full set as soon as we got home (to play outside with friends before dinner...see picture below...that's Checkers in his shirt). Then...Logan slept in them that night and got quite upset the next morning when I told him that he couldn't wear the shirt to school...even WITH jeans. He got over it...quite well in fact, but I quickly put everything in the laundry so he wouldn't try to wear the shirt again once he got home that day. Monday night, in honor of the new PJs, Aiden wore the Buzz ones Logan outgrew and Brady wore his NEW Buzz jammies as well. I wanted to take a picture, but couldn't find my camera. We love you and we thank you for aiding us (read: Logan) with our emergency night-wear situation!

I was just looking at my camera and I have a TON of posts to do, but first - our trip to the Morton Arboretum last weekend. We met up with our good friends and their three little boys (yes - three little boys!) I was telling Logan about what we were going to do that day and he was SO excited to hang out with a family like ours. He kept saying "and they have three brothers just like we do?! That's so cool!". Timmy is 5, PJ is almost 4 & Patrick is 14 months. (Review: Logan = 4, Aiden = almost 3 and Bray is 17 months)

They've actually all met and Logan remembers quite a lot about the Wilkins's house, even though it's been over a year since we've been there with him. He was talking about their cool kid's closet where you can draw on the walls, the fact that Timmy & PJ have trick tracks too and about their playhouse in the back yard (styled like a mini version of the main house). Anyway, it was a blast to see the 6 boys all together. The littlest Wilkins is quite a calm baby just like his brothers while the littest Houck, a mere 3 months older, was trying to kamakazi jump out of the stroller and, again, act like a 4 year old. You can pretty much tell by my pictures who I was following around for most of the morning. I had to be on Aiden like white on rice or he may STILL be at the Arboretum. In fact, we almost lost him at one point! He was heading back to the creek area quite some distance from the tree house where we were playing and Brian had to run way ahead and find him....be still my (panic stricken) beating heart!



This was also the first official summer t-shirt test....HUGE success. I decided to order official brightly-colored shirts for the boys last week. I have some cool pictures of their arrival. I'll post that another time. Anyway, it was very easy to spot my troop of crazy boys running everywhere in their red Houck shirts. I wonder how it is that 3 little boys can manage to run in 7 different directions simultaneously.

On the way: Aiden models his McDonald's pancake as a hat. A and Brady get a kick out of holding hands between their seats.
The Arboretum has lots of cool water exhibits (or whatever they are called...water things). Brady LOVED them and played in this particular one for at least 15 minutes.

Aiden checks out the water too....and walks where he's not supposed to...and scares his mother...like what else is new with monkey-boy, right? :)

Here is Aiden again. He just finished climbing up the side of the this giant tree root structure (not a real tree root, but it's made to look like one). There is actually a ladder UNDER the roots that you're supposed to use to climb up and go down a couple slides. I encouraged his out-of-the-box climbing though...since I was standing right behind him, he wasn't in danger of drowning this time and...it seemed like more fun.

There are various water pumps around the kid's area that you can pull on. Poor Aiden had to throw ALL of his body weight into it to get the handle down...but he wasn't going to give up!!

Brady was especially grateful for Aiden's hard work.

Here are some of the boys climbing on a big giant net thing.

Here we are in "the tree fort". There are about 3 or 4 of these rope and wooden plank paths suspended above the ground. Brady wanted to go with his brothers, but it's actually quite trecherous so daddy escorted him.

This is the end of the walkway. Here come the boys - dashing out to do it again! This is also where we almost lost Aiden. The start of this structure is WAY around a corner and you can't see it from the end. We went to escort Brady on another go-round and....no Aiden in site. RUN!

Back to the creek...time to get wet (it's pretty much inevitable if you play the way the Houck boys do! The Wilkins kids managed to stay pretty dry for the most part)

Unfortunately, Brady really likes to throw rocks...mostly at people. On the plus side, kid's got a good arm!
Here, Brian helps Timmy (up on top...blending into the Houck clan with his red shirt), Aiden and Logan build a damn in the creek.

Nice work (see it there on the right?)

Aiden and Logan check out one of the cool teaching boxes around the area. This one was about color obviously.

Back view of the new Houck shirts. Logan is the 6th boy in a row on the Houck side, Aiden is the 8th...Brady is the 9th! After we played for a while, we headed over to the picnic area, changed cloths and had a nice lunch on the grass. After that, we goofed around a bit more before heading home. Aiden re-wet his shirt hugging a big floating water ball thing and had to wear Logan's less-soaked Houck shirt home.

How can we tell it was a good day?? This is a picture of the boys about 10 seconds after we left the Arboretum parking lot! Poor Brady...that head angle can not be comfy!